Wild-aster textile

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Although this fabric came into the Museum’s collection without any documented connection to Candace Wheeler (1827-1923) or her firm, Associated Artists, it nevertheless may be their work since they are the only nineteenth-century textile firm that is known to have designed patterns for discharge printing on blue denim. Like the other discharge-printed fabrics in the company’s oeuvre, this floral pattern is Japanese in feel. Associated Artists commonly embellished its printed denims with silk embroidery highlights like the French knots in the centers of these asters.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art